Welcome!

If you’re reading this post, you have made it to http://blog.theplanet.com, The Planet’s new blog home! For the past few months, we have been testing the blog waters at a temporary WordPress.com address, but that installation couldn’t provide us the flexibility and expandability that our new home does.

Additionally (and more importantly), we’ve got the blog humming along on one of the 45,000+ servers on our network! If you haven’t taken a second to bookmark this page or add the feed to your RSS reader (http://blog.theplanet.com/feed/), you should do so before starting the next paragraph. Trust me, the guilt will weigh heavy upon your head if you do not bookmark/add before you continue reading.

As you can see, subtlety was never my strong suit.

Now that you’ve updated you bookmark and added us to your RSS feed, I can fill you in on what you can expect to see from our team at this fancy new address. The main cosmetic changes — or what we like to call “bling” — of the new site includes a wider page layout and a brand-spanking-new navigation bar. We’ll continue to update the blog’s presentation with sidebar widgets, new content and new pictures.

On the back-end, we’ve installed a few plug-ins to cache the content and improve functionality.

What does this move mean for you? Well, since you’ve already updated your bookmarks and RSS feeds (or started crying in response to the guilt of not doing so), we just ask you to stay tuned! We’ve got a lot of great ideas coming this direction, and we’re confident that you will love them.

- Kevin

I find myself in unfamiliar waters with the launch of our new corporate blog today … this is new to me and very uncomfortable … I am used to dealing with customers, face-to-face and one-on-one … or making speeches to large audiences … i have never liked communicating through the written word … this new world of the masses and forums and blogs is strange … I do not like “hanging out there” … control freak I guess … but also because it takes me so much time to put my thoughts down on paper … a very very big time consumer … of which like you … there never seems to be enough time … (in my next life I want to come back and study the sciences so I can work on slowing down the rotation of the earth, therefore giving people 28 or 30 hours in the day) … oh well … my marketing team has told me I must join the 21^st century and get on with it … don’t get me wrong … I love talking to anyone who will listen about our company and what we’re doing … i will talk for hours about our plans and dreams and progress here at The Planet … but as I have already said … it has usually been through speeches and personal meetings with customers … but … here goes …

Anytime you merge two large companies there are going to be challenges … and we’ve made no secret that we’ve had a few … simply said … we’re trying to take the best of the two, compare it with anything on the outside and pick the best of breed in all we implement … we knew making these changes would not be easy but ultimately it would allow us to deliver better products and services to our customers …

we are driven to become the best at what we do … we realize that we need the best trained employees and tools to accomplish this … we are willing to spend the money to do this … and we’re already spending a chunk of dough on training our teams and buying tools that a world-class company must have …

we’re attacking the customer support and technical support areas first … we went out and hired a top-notch industry expert who has built many large, highly efficient world-class customer support centers for Fortune 500 companies … Jim Picone is the guy … the support centers he has built are easily 10’s of times larger then our needs … so we gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse and had him pick his family up and move them to Houston … we are thrilled to have him and as a lot of you have already mentioned in the forums and notes to me … there is already a difference … and we have just begun …

we have consolidated the dallas and houston call centers into one … we have invested in a system that now allows us to record and monitor the quality of our responses to the service calls so we can evaluate the rep’s performance and provide on-the-spot coaching and training … we are buying an entirely new phone system that lets us collect and review stats for the first time … it is hard to deliver world-class services if you don’t know how many calls you are getting and what hold times customers are experiencing … (hopefully that phone system will be installed within the next 8 to 10 weeks) … we are also evaluating a crm system … more work to do here … should be making the decision shortly … all of this is part of the millions of dollars we told you we are going to spend in order to build a world-class experience for our customers … you will see great strides with customer service each and every day … we are moving as fast as we can …

we are in the process of increasing our wages so we can keep and attract top talent … we are implementing a program to test our current and future technicians allowing us to have three levels … we will have criteria for them to work toward and goals they need to accomplish before we promote them … we are putting this in so our employees will view working at the planet as a place they can grow and have long term careers … in the past we paid poorly and taught them the basics and then they left for more pay … churn hurts and we want to keep our good employees … we will help by paying for them to get certifications … we will provide tuition reimbursements … and we will create a culture that rewards good work and customer focus …

Throughout the company we’re creating a culture that focuses on customers, ownership, integrity, trust and passion … a lot of powerful words but it is our rallying cry … we will prove it to you day by day … baby steps first and then great strides …

We have a lot to do … but we’re moving and we’re headed in the right direction …

so wrapping up my first entry (and it only took 2-½ hours) … let me thank you for your business … we all appreciate your business … we realize that you pay our salaries … thanks for the feedback you give us … keep it coming … it makes us work harder and run faster …

thanks for reading …

“Be careful … it’s a jungle out there …”

- Doug